Barstow’s senior artists are entering crunch time to complete all of their pieces before they start to set up their displays for the Senior Art Show Monday, April 29th.
The Senior Art Show has been a long-standing tradition at Barstow. It takes place in the last couple weeks of the school year in the Upper School Commons. The students each have their section of the Commons to display artwork, some of which they’re even willing to sell to the community! It’s open during and after school for other students, parents, and faculty to walk through and see if they’d like to make a purchase.
Though the name might seem a little deceiving, faculty and staff have sold their artwork during the show in the past, too, like Mr. Johnson’s painting of coffee and donuts!
To become a senior artist and be eligible for the show, a student has to take Art Fundamentals, and then pick an art to pursue (ceramics, drawing & painting, or photography) throughout their high school career. As long as they take honors (or the third level of their chosen medium) in the spring semester of their senior year, they will get to participate in the Senior Art Show!
“The show opens on Monday, April 29th after Applause Night, the award ceremony for artists here at Barstow. Both events are open to anyone who wants to come!” says Ms. Lea, a middle and upper school art teacher.
The head of the art department in the middle and upper school, Mrs. Lilli Lackey, is excited to continue this tradition for another year. “The art show itself has been around since I’ve been here, close to twenty-five years, if not more. Mrs. Hilvitz developed it after a previous school started a similar tradition.”
Though it is a celebration of seniors, the art show wraps the lower school students into the culture of the school and gives them something to look forward to once they get to high school.
“The show is a nice way to decorate the gallery at the end of the year every year, and even the lower school gets to come and visit. It creates a year-after-year tradition that they get to see from their first few years here and then get to participate in it when they’re a senior. It’s great for the community,” adds Lackey.
Aside from displaying their talent, the show also gives seniors a chance to put their art in a more professional front. They get the practice of pricing their pieces, creating a website, and creating business cards for means of communication when it comes to selling pieces and picking them up after the sale.
Of course, it’s also a way for them to make a little extra money before they leave for college.
To be prepared for these steps, the seniors have spent all of this semester working on their projects and figuring out how they want to display their work on the 29th of April.
Once the show is up and running, visitors will be able to see a variety of ceramic pieces, drawings, and paintings with different mediums, and photography. Some of the seniors teased some of their pieces that will be for sale like mosaics, vases, watercolor triptychs, and much more!
Students found out their locations in the gallery last week, and in addition to finishing their pieces, the seniors are creating their banners and business cards, pricing pieces, deciding their layouts, photographing completed works for the websites, and tying up any other loose ends.
“Another important thing to know about their preparation for the Senior Art Show is that it’s basically a project in and of itself. The composition of their display like the balance of space and color is super important to having a successful show,” explains Lackey.
Senior artists are doing their best to find these balances in the final weeks of preparation.
“I’m in the process of figuring out what layout I want for my display and how to show off my best pieces. I want to make it attractive to buy, but still price everything reasonably,” says Raj Fanaswala ‘24, a ceramicist in the show this year.
The senior art show also forces students to learn new skills.
“Pricing is the hardest part,” says Rian Jacobs ‘24. “You don’t want to oversell your work, but you also don’t want to undersell it. I’m working on finding that for each one of my pieces.”
Though there is certainly some struggle along the way, Mrs. Lackey and Ms. Lea both believe that the senior art courses are designed in a way that lets them have the most creative freedom.
“They come up with their own syllabus and schedule of what they want to make, almost like an independent study,” says Ms. Lea.
Mrs. Lackey agrees, saying, “They can create anything. It’s a chance for them to use what they’ve learned to create what’s interesting for them and show off a wide range and variety of their skills.”
The students have learned to appreciate these benefits as well as they’ve worked through their final semester.
“The flexibility of it and the freedom of being able to creatively express myself has been amazing,” says Helton Walker ‘24. “I don’t have to limit myself by a medium or an idea, and I get to do whatever I want to (within reason). It’s something that’s been really exciting for me.”
The leisure and alternate structure has allowed seniors to find some respite, too.
“It’s really relaxing. Getting back into doing art as a regular thing has been fun, especially after last year with all of my rigorous classes. Doing something I enjoy more during the day is a nice change,” explains Avani Lakkireddy ‘24.
From the instructor’s standpoint, Mrs. Lackey’s favorite part about teaching senior artists in their last semester is this final display of their talents. “I love seeing the show all put together. I forget what the students make from one year to the next, and it’s cool to see the pieces come back to the school presented together with the new ones.”
Ms. Lea, too, loves to see the final product. However, it reveals a lot to the artists themselves. “What I always find funny is how surprised some of them are that they sell their art. They don’t realize how good they are, and it’s pretty cool to watch that validation happen in real-time.”
As we get closer and closer to opening night, the senior artists want to make sure that underclassmen still pursue the arts to ensure that this tradition gets to continue, and they guarantee you’ll at least enjoy the class even if you don’t feel like your art will sell.
As always, be sure to go out to Applause Night and congratulate your peers on their accomplishments in the arts, and please be careful and respectful with your backpacks in the commons once all the artwork has been put up on display!
